Because I started a thread on their counterpart…objective is the same as on the other thread. Talk about whatever antagonist related thing you want. Just make it somewhat useful, because I think many people on here would agree with me when they say that antagonists are among the most challenging characters to deal with.

Tips, as always, are appreciated.

@CompleteBastard- I’m sure you can be your own whole literary masterpiece if you put your mind to it. ;)

@RikkiTikkiTavi- Yeah, antagonists are hard. I’m having trouble figuring out the motivations and past for my own antagonist. She’s not evil, but feels that her race, the witches, have been suppressed by humans when the witches are actually the more powerful race and deserve more respect. I shall have to flesh her out very much. Luckily for me, she doesn’t turn up for a while yet, so I can procrastinate a bit longer.

I think that if the antagonist is another person, the author should be able to write the story from their POV and still have the reader at least somewhat root for them. No one is really evil, and any sane person can justify their actions,

Nah, my name shows up nowhere.

That level of narcissism does not seem normal. That, and the extremity to which his moral compass is off are indicative of an abnormal personality, which could certainly be called insanity. Voldemort, Lex Luthor, and Hannibal Lector are all somewhat sympathetic or “normal”, and to varying degrees are all abnormal, or “evil”. Compare that to the examples I gave earlier, the Terminator, the Joker, and Anton Chigurh, all of whom have gone beyond that, seeming in fact to be physical manifestations of that abnormality.

What I said before about sympathetic antagonists was done with my personal favorite antagonist, Jaime Lannister of A Song of Ice and Fire, in mind. In the first two books, we see him through the eyes of his family’s political rivals, the Stark family, and thus in a very negative light. But halfway through book three, in which we get his point of view, he has become a very sympathetic, almost heroic character, and by the end of the fourth book he has gone through complete redemption.

I didn’t find Count Olaf to be very convincing. His motives were rather weak in my opinion…

I think a good antagonist also needs to be loved as much as your protagonist. Too many times, the author is so focused on their protagonist, and then their rival gets shuffled off to the side and slapped with tropes/cliches.

I mean that the writer should feel a connection like love to him. How the reader feels is different.

I’m probably babbling and trying to make a point here, but failing epically.

I get it. But I disagree to some extent- the villain is going to be defeated (yes, I am generalising epically here. You have to or you never discuss anything but specifics, and that’s not always helpful.), and the writer’s not going to want to get attached to someone whose own protagonists are going to bring about their downfall. Doesn’t matter whether the antagonist is good or bad, but the writer should always be on the protag’s side. Otherwise there’s some major role reversal.

Yes, I suppose it depends on the situation of your antagonist. Not all antagonists are necessarily evil.

And yes, I see your point. it’s hard to get attached without wanting to stop them from dying [of course, in my case, I just put all my favorite characters through hell and watch as they all are murdered and killed.] I guess how much you can care about them depends upon the personal situation of your novel. In mine, it works, since the protagonist and antagonist have very different goals, but use the same means to accomplish them. Except the antagonist is a bit more extreme in his actions. In that situation, I can like the antagonist, even though from the story it sounds like he should be utterly and completely hated, since it is all in 1st person from the viewpoint of the protagonist.

Now that was incoherent babbling. Mornings are not good for me and intelligent statements.

Nobody is evil in their own minds.

The only way to express the antagonist’s true motivations is through omniscient narration. Otherwise you are always seeing the antagonist through the mind of the character.

Still though, if you go in the protagonist’s head you are framing his image of the antagonist, if you are going in the antagonist’s head you are framing his own self-portrait.

Lol I disagree.

You’re just disagreeing on principle anyway :)

What about, “I want to do this because I can and because it will have a good result for me. I’m evil, stfu.”

That’s one interpretaton. Another is:

“I don’t care about anyone else. They can do as they like. They’re so weak for caring about others. Me? I’m the most important thing in the world. And I’ll be bad cause I like it like that. ha ha. I love being evil. Now I’m gonna go throw a kitten off a cliff. “

of course, in my case, I just put all my favorite characters through hell and watch as they all are murdered and killed.

You know, it’s people like you guys who [insert bad action here]. I don’t mind characters going through hell, but I’d prefer that they (or they-1) come out relatively unharmed. Now, that is not to say untraumatised.

Lol. I haven’t actually written enough to really generalise on the subject. But I’m saying that if I ever did finish something, they might go through hell, but they would not all die.

Lol no. What fail.

To get into the mind of an “evil” person you must ask yourself why people even in civilized societies are so subliminally evil.

“I don’t care about anyone else” translates to “I don’t think I should care about anyone else”, “They can do a they like” becomes “They can manage the consequences just fine, what cry babies”, “They’re so weak for caring about others” becomes “What over-emotional airheads”, “Me? I’m the most important thing in the world” becomes “I should seek out my own happiness, just like everyone else”, “I’ll be bad because I like it” becomes “If they want to call me bad, so be it”, “haha, I love being evil” becomes “rofl these people don’t even understand me so what’s the point in explaining myself”, “Now I’m going to throw a kitten off a clioff” becomes “Please act scandalized, it amuses me”.

I really want to write a convincing antagonist, but not only is she a fricking evil stepmother, she’s also a sadist, a sorceress, and involved in an elaborate plot to kill the reigning king and heir to the throne.

How can I make that work?

I really want to write a convincing antagonist, but not only is she a fricking evil stepmother, she’s also a sadist, a sorceress, and involved in an elaborate plot to kill the reigning king and heir to the throne.

How can I make that work?

Give her a believeable motivation. Why is she so power hungry? I’m already interested in this character, she sounds like the sort you love to hate – give her a motivation that makes us hate her more. She doesn’t necessarily need a good side that the protag knows of, but the important thing is you know her inside out.

In the current short story I’m writing, the protagonist becomes his own antagonist when he lets his ambitious nature take over his life and unknowingly puts what he holds dearest at risk. In the one I plan to write when this one’s complete, I don’t think there’ll be an antagonist – just a short, sweet romance story.

And in my longer story (I hesitate to call it a novel) I have a much more traditionally ‘evil’ character convinced he is a deity’s descendant and wants to topple said deity for rulership. He is the descendant of a Time Priest, who are in touch with the Gods, as is the protagonist. The major conflict takes place in a small temple between the two as one tries to stop the other from wrecking havoc across the world (as they perceive each other is doing).

Lol, I almost wrote Time Lord. I knew that joke would come up. >_> I’ve posted excerpts of it before on the site (before the critique section went under). I’ve written the beginning, the ending, and pieces of the middle, but I’m not very good at sustaining long stories. I can’t see it being past… I dunno, 50 pages?

And the stepmother sounds great. Maybe she was born that way? Had a curse placed on her at birth? (although then she becomes an object of pity. Unless she finds out about the curse and is happy she’s got it.)

Pure evil characters are not necessarily badly made. Think Umbridge of Harry Potter. Can you name one redeeming trait about her? No, but she made an excellent villain. If you can make the reader hate the character as passionately as the protagonist, then your job as a writer has been a success.

And what is your view on the nature of good and evil?

Good and evil are completely different from good (a different type of good, obviously) and bad, or at least that’s what I think you’re saying.

Anyone who takes a dualistic view really hasn’t thought about it carefully much.

There is no such thing as universal good or evil, just actions you respect and actions you abhor depending on how your mind is programmed.

Dualistic separates actions into two fundamental categories, this so-called “Good” and this so-called “Evil”. Good is usually defined by what the masses envy most of the elite, and Evil is anything that goes against what the masses feel is good. Hence you have all these charlatan philosophers who praise values like stoicism and self-effacement and society on the whole is founded on snubbing yourself for each other instead of actually accepting each other wholly.

Lol @ good and evil being called objective. That is precisely what is wrong right now. They are not objective in the least.

Good—as we see it—is all based either on resentment or self-despite and evil is based on having power over yourself and your own destiny. Therefore we praise being codependant on each other and shun Independence, reward tears and not courage, expect pity and not respect.

Ditto. That made absolutely no sense.

Especially not in books, at least the one’s I’ve read.

In the story I’m writing, actually, the protagonist is attempting to achieve independence over what others expect her destiny to be. She hates having people pity her. She wants power over her fate. Is she evil?

How is she trying to carry it out? Goals aren’t always good or evil, but how you reach them certainly is.

And aiming for a good goal with questionable methods is what turns characters into anti-heroes.

In any case, how complex our interpretation of good and evil is is dependant on what we want of our story. I’m citing Umbridge again, because she a good example of an ‘evil’ character done so well she’ll make your blood boil. She’s not a very complex character, but she reflects the common dissatisfaction of an close-minded, ill-run government and gets in the way of our heroes, thus striking two nerves in one. At the end of the day, whatever one’s views on the complexities of good and evil are, as long as they side our readers with the protagonist and makes them want to see the antagonist fall from their high chair, we have accomplished our job as writer – to make them think is better, yes, but it’s not mandatory. At the end of the day, we’re setting out to give an interesting read.

Yeah, which is why people with ambition and determination are always considered cruel and needlessly harsh and saps who act humble are always considered angels.

Face it, good as we perceive it is designed to shape the way we think. We would rather avoid conflict than meet it head on, lie to ourselves and our children, never confront our own self-effacing actions. The best way to win over someone’s admiration is to pretend to be weak rather than to keep your own autonomy and grit. Which is why you always have people who play the “hurt” card to win the side of neutral audiences, rather than argue with rational reasoning. Whoever can put on a better show of pain is always the righter one.

Who would you say is “good”? The person who avoids challenge and always asks for help or the person who meets it head on and tries to be as independent as possible? Do our religions and philosophies idealize one or the other, and if so why? Can we not recognize what is wrong with our attitudes to life? Can we not see why it is important to recognize and respect our own individuality and other individuals? Why do we insist that other people must conform to our standards, and what makes our standards “good” in the first place? What is our justification, and why is it valid?

Incorrect, I value compassion, but also self-honesty. I understand the virtues of compassion, but compassion should also never be done blindly, lest it lead to long-term destruction.

Think about how many people do “compassionate” deeds just to impress other people or feel good about themselves. A good example of this is how you perceive the homeless. Some people don’t give money, others throw money at them. Both are pretty iffy dealings to me. The way I see it the homeless should be given a task to do so he feels like he earned it through his own labor. That is how you break the cycle of dependency and give him dignity at the same time. That is how he can realize he has the power over his own choices and can become a self-reliant man.

Are our choices really compassionate if we seriously damage an individual’s long-term spirit? Or is it just grounded in patting our own egos and feeling good about ourselves for being “virtuous”? Do we make treating everybody else like children a virtue?

Another good example is how we feel the need to pass laws to protect other people from themselves, such as substance laws and so forth. We feel so concerned that other people might make the wrong choices that we ourselves support these laws. We don’t say, as an individual, you can make choices for yourself, and if you hurt others you will be punished—no, we say, for the good of society we ought to do this or do that, even if it means taking away the real aspect of choice. We call it a “civilized” society, but it’s only held in order by those who hold the majority stance and gunpower.

Why do we as a people feel the need to surround our lives with fantasy? Why is reality so unbearable so that when someone comes along and points out the truth we feel personally castrated? Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. But not one person minds trying to silence those who disagree with the “right” beliefs. If your ideas are right, dissenting thought should not make you sweat in nervousness. It should be welcomed, so you can revise your thinking and make it better. Think about holocaust denial laws. I believe the holocaust did happen, but if other people want to disagree so be it, we can always argue about it with reason. Screaming “insensitive”, “racist”, “bigoted” and “closeminded” and stifling speech to protect someone’s feelings and walking away is how we become close-minded ourselves.

Why don’t we support decentralized power? Empowering everyone equally, not handing it over to just the people who the majority deems “correct”? Who is the real cynic now?

But that’s not it, it goes even deeper than just law, it’s also how we interact with people every day. We are too shy to be rude, and our constant shyness leads us to do really dickish things in the end. We become spectators to everything that goes on around us, forgetting that the choice of inaction is also an action—and as such is a choice we make as individuals, whose consequences we are just as responsible for. Think about as a child how you watch on as a spectator idly as children torment each other in school each day. We do absolutely nothing, we just watch on in silence because we feel afraid for ourselves. Those that do express their dissent are ostracized and outcasted, and by that we learn how to conform and be social. We conform because we want to be accepted by others. Then when we grow up we become adults. Sometimes we want to say something and just disagree, but most of the time we never say what’s on our mind to “keep the peace”—this is just another way of saying we want others to accept and admire us a majority of the time. When most people say “keep the peace” what they’re really saying is “make sure people still like me and I’m not alone, even if I have to hide me from others”. In a free country that’s about the worst that can happen if you disagree with a person. Why should people have to agree with us to “keep the peace”? Why can’t we just argue furiously all day but not let our disagreements be the main factor of our friendship? Why is that such a crazy idea? Are we really tolerant of differences, or just of superficial, mundane aspects like sex, gender, and race—things that physically are, while humans have more deeper aspects to them?

How many people there are that complain about how hard their lives are! But very few people realize they have the ability to improve it themselves through their own willpower. Instead they cry about how unfair life is to them and try to offset the cards in their hands by winning the sympathy of others. They don’t realize though you’ve been dealt with really shitty cards you can still play with them, and how intelligently you play with those cards is what matters in the end. Instead they win the sympathy of others by crying the loudest and getting them to lift you up out of the trench you were born in, most of the time without even trying yourself. We reward tears, not sweat. If you sweat, that’s also admirable, but if you cry, oh you poor, poor darling, how cruel life is! And anyone who disagrees with such ideals is a Nazi scumbag fascist douche and a bitter lonely person—that’s how we dismiss things so easily.

What we define as good and evil is too shallow. Some supposedly “good” choices lead to grave evils. Some supposedly “evil” choices lead to lots of good. We call people evil because we don’t want to understand what drives them. We call people good because we don’t want to question their supposed virtue. In the end most of our “good” ideals, if not carefully considered, lead to the destruction of will-power and resilience; most of our “evil” ideals sound evil and callous, but if carefully considered, lead to mutual respect and self-determination. You can be an “evil” person and still compassionate, and you can be a “good” person and still egotistical and self-righteous—especially if you never think about how your helping hands hurts the very people whom you sought to help.

I’d rather teach a man to fish for life than give him a fish for the night, personally. He may not understand what I am doing right now, or ever, but at least he can feed himself in the end—let him curse me all he wants for not giving him free fish; let him call me a cruel exploiter. But if given the option I would teach him how to feed himself, not how to have to rely on anybody else. That does not imply that they can’t give him free food if they feel like—that would be kind indeed. But the problem is other people are so self-righteous that they insist that if we don’t give immediate satisfaction to others, people like us are cruel.

A life without passion and filled with temporary pleasure is bound to lead to ennui.

Instead of wishing magic was real, why not do the things you wish you had magic for to do?

Study physics. Build wings. Problem solved.

But if you knew why you wanted to fly, find another way to fulfill those reasons.

As long as you recognize they are daydreams it’s not harmful, so go ahead.

Creativity dissolves all limitations.

lol

I want to post another tl;dr post.

Man, sometimes my posts are a little disjointed when I’m up late, but you can still understand the point that I’m making. That was just incomprehensible.

I like antagonists who kill some protagonists to show how competent they are.

Man, sometimes my posts are a little disjointed when I’m up late, but you can still understand the point that I’m making. That was just incomprehensible.

This is called a hangover moment. THis is when you wake up after a night of partying and think “Oh God, what did I do??“

Except here, all I did is in print. headdesk

I like LeChuck, because he goes after Guybrush Threepwood himself, rather than delegating the task to a henchman whom he knows will screw up. Who cares that it doesn’t work out in the end?

Thats because Sauron was gloating at the time. Or helping Isildur back up. _{This is what I choose to believe} :D